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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> Twitter was already super partisan long before he took it over

Sure. But Elon changed teams. He used to be bipartisan. But he chose a champion in the aftermath of Covid and--by the looks of it--he's chosen a bad one.

(In an alternate universe where Musk stuck to what he's good at, I could see the entire Artemis programme being delegated to SpaceX and a bipartisan adoption of Tesla as America's EV standard bearer. Instead, there is real political capital in creating a rival to SpaceX. And Tesla is going to have to constantly be on the defence against cheap Chinese imports from the Democrats and establishment Republicans.)

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I really effing hate the idea that competition is created not because people with entrepreneurial spirit think they can do what SpaceX does cheaper and better, but because the guy running the show is politically undesirable and untrustworthy.

But that's not the issue: the issue is that Musk alienated almost the entire core demographic who wanted to buy Tesla's, wanted to support electric cars and were more or less completely primed to freely promote the entire brand.

He is a man who owns an electric car company but has been pushing climate change denialism as his political position and supporting politicians who do.

There's competition because Tesla is not the dominant prime mover it's valuation implies it should be, and people have sensed - correctly - a market opening. No one I know recommends "buy a Tesla" anymore for your first electric car - they say buy a Hydundai Ioniq or wait for a Chinese brand to get cheaper.

People are actively embarrassed to drive Teslas, which in turn means there's a growing market for "anything but a Tesla...". And because of that all of the actual faults of a Tesla are paid that much more scrutiny.

Just a single man representing single family in Switzerland but you are right - I'll never buy anything from Tesla, couldn't care less if they are best or not (no they are not in 2024, novelty wore off some time ago with tons of competition, at least in Europe).

He showed his true colors, there is no correction possible, people just don't rewrite their core personality. Support for puttin' and overall war in Ukraine, support for dictators, very bad stance on many societal topics, treats his employees like slaves, proper piece of shit as a parent, utterly childish reactions of an immature boy rather than Man - we haven't seen the worst yet.

Brilliance in some aspects means nothing if its dragged down into mud by rest of personality. I know some still worship him for the positives and ignore or even appreciate the rest, I can't and won't.

Tbh, not sure what percentage of Tesla buyers are ideologically motivated, but having tried a couple electric cars, I still believe the Model 3 is the best EV outside the premium segment, period.

As for Musk, he's a weird one for sure. He made me realize that I don't know the politics of most CEOs (or even know who they are). Which is just as well, I don't want to ponder in the supermarket whether my bodywash is ideologically consistent with my shampoo.

how many other products do you ideologically affiliate with?

I dislike Musk like many others, but I think Teslas are still the best EVs out there.

I dislike Musk like many others, but I think Teslas are still the best EVs out there and it's very possible that my next one is a Tesla too.

I missed out on his climate change denialism - if true that seem strange from the head of one of the most successful EV companies and arguably the company that finally got the EV revolution started since all the others were dragging their feet. He further sells solar roofs and off grid power.

I think people see Musk differently from how he actually is. Or at least how he sees himself.

He has always said, for many years, that he got into SpaceX to work towards the goal of making humans a multiplanetary species, and he got into electric cars to work towards the goal of having a sustainable energy society.

I think he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society, and if that threat isn’t addressed then the other goals don’t matter because society will collapse before they can be realized.

From a near term business perspective his political actions are dumb, but from a personal motivation perspective they make total sense.

Or in other words, Musk is primarily driven by a savior complex, not greed (which is unfortunate for investors).

> he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society

Sure. I don't think he's a hypocrite. He has, however, hyper fixated on a topic that's in vogue in tech circles but totally irrelevant elsewhere.

Unlike in technology, where one can credibly fail upwards, doing that in politics comes at the cost of influence. And in this block order we're seeing, tangibly, the consequences of Elon Musk's deteriorating influence.

What is this topic that's only in vogue in tech circles? Wokeism?

> What is this topic that's only in vogue in tech circles? Wokeism?

Wokeism as it pertains to social media's discussion of the woke mind virus. Everyone has an opinion on it. But it's not of practical relevance to most people, certainly not most voters. Sort of like modern art.

Considering a ton of podcasts talk about it and they're not in the tech bubble I'd say it's a pretty important topic especially in the US.

> Considering a ton of podcasts talk about it and they're not in the tech bubble I'd say it's a pretty important topic especially in the US

Yes, like modern art. It’s talked about a lot. But it’s an obsession of a few and irrelevant to most Americans.

I don't know man, I'm not even from the US and I meet a lot of people being concerned about wokeism being imported into our country, do you have any proof of your allegations?

> Considering a ton of podcasts talk about it and they're not in the tech bubble I'd say it's a pretty important topic especially in the US

Yes, like modern art. It’s talked about a lot, especially by a particular core who gain money and influence from it. But it’s an obsession of a few and irrelevant to most Americans. It certainly doesn’t build one a national platform.

It’s not an important topic, any more than any other moral panic.

I do agree that he is hyper fixated on specific things like gender

but – I do think that there are elements of the “woke mind virus” that are okay with censorship. I don’t think that censorship has any place in a democracy, and I do think it is a problem we need to address.

The executive branch asked Twitter to ban a NY Post story on the grounds that it was misinformation when it wasn’t. It was “malinformation”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malinformation

They didn’t correct the record, and Ro Khanna emailed Twitter to cut that shit out: https://www.businessinsider.com/khanna-emailed-twitter-free-...

I really don’t like Elon, but I fear the previous Twitter censors more. Media is supposed to keep the government in check and not the other way around.

Musk’s Twitter actively censors and promotes content based on the personal whims of the billionaire owner. Is that really better for democracy?

The Twitter/X experiment seems to have primarily succeeded in demonstrating that nobody has good solutions for this problem, and just repeating words like “misinformation” and “free speech” doesn’t get us any closer to a solution.

Props to Bluesky for trying something else, at least.

The opposite was true before Musk.

Some friends have an ancap libertarian and they were targeted before.

Woke content is not censored and you can find it on X, it's just that most left-wing people left for alternatives.

I went to bluesky briefly and I was inundated by transgender explicit content. I didn't open it again.

Musk censors mentions of his own daughter on X — the same person who he claimed was dead on a recent interview, but who is very much alive and posting on Threads.

That kind of monarch-like behavior didn’t exist on Twitter before Musk. Their protocols for hiding and removing content may have been very flawed, but at least there was a process.

“ I do think that there are elements of the “woke mind virus” that are okay with censorship”

Then let’s not focus on some made up boogeyman and ignore the fact that in 2020, the executive at the time was happily reaching out to Twitter and other platforms asking them to remove posts. The guy Musk is supporting was happily asking Twitter to remove posts.

But let’s be clear, they were asking Twitter to enforce its rules. And you can argue that the government asking like that is illegal, but I’ve yet to see a guilty verdict in court so, until that happens, Twitter enforcing its rules isn’t censorship. No one has been denied their first amendment rights.

More importantly, by Musks own yardstick, Twitter is no longer the bastion of Free Speech it was when he took control. So regardless of what you think, Twitter is worse off now.

The reason I don't move to the USA is because of woke people, scary numbers of mental health and crime.

The reason I moved country is because woke politics is making life worse. Crime is through the roof, kids can't go out in the cities by themselves because it's too dangerous. They started doing mandatory "gender identity" education in school, teaching crap to my kids.

I'm still in Europe and observing a progressive decline so I'm ready to move to Asia, the Caribbean, South America (Argentina maybe?) or maybe switch to the enemy and go to Russia or China, depending on how the situation evolves.

Dictatorship for dictatorship, I just want a low tax, safe place and governments to bother me as little as possible.

Some countries in Eastern Europe actively opposes gender stuff (it is banned in education). I do not know why "gender" is being asked in the first place, it should be "sex", and that is biological. Why do we ask for gender on websites, for example? What is the purpose of it, really?

> Why do we ask for gender on websites, for example? What is the purpose of it, really?

I can only think of two reasons:

1) Localised messages to and from the user. Not every language supports gender-neutral singular "you/they".

2) Demographic tracking e.g. for advertising: I've been given unskippable ads on YouTube for sanitary pads, and have forgotten which ad network presented me with one for dick pills.

Hmm, are you sure about the localized messages? They typically use 'you' instead of third-person pronouns like 'he' or 'she.'

85% sure: the claim here was that there are some languages where "you" itself comes in masculine and feminine forms. I'm told this applies to Hebrew and Arabic — אתה and את — but my ability to confirm this is limited to googling wiktionary.

85% is mainly how much I trust the sources: my experience has been kind of factoid is often true, but sometimes turns out to be "this source sounds like it means X, but actually it means Y" or worse "we made it up and you'll never check".

That said, I ought to have written "I can only think of two *good* reasons", because the third reason is "whenever anyone makes a database of people, we automatically add gender without even thinking about it".

Wouldn't asking for "sex" suffice though? What happens when someone picks "none of the above" or "prefer not to answer"?

I remember when the Toyota Prius was a potent symbol of everything that was wrong with smug liberals. Lazy comedians still use the Prius as a punchline. Why doesn't a Tesla Model 3 carry the same sort of political baggage? Why don't right-wing conspiracy theorists consider Musk to be part of the "WHO/WEF globalist elite", despite the fact that he's a tech billionaire who is literally trying to plug people's brains into The Matrix and colonise space?

By taking sides in a partisan culture war, he has made his core mission essentially non-partisan. Maybe he does really believe all of that stuff about "the woke mind virus", or maybe he realised that he can buy a priceless amount of political capital amongst people who would instinctively hate the goals of his project just by uttering the right incantations.

> Why doesn't a Tesla Model 3 carry the same sort of political baggage?

When was the last time you were in a red state? Driving an EV of any kind is a strong political statement.

> By taking sides in a partisan culture war, he has made his core mission essentially non-partisan

Not how partisan affiliation works--think of someone who flip flops from one side to the other. They aren't seen as above the fray or non-partisan. Just unreliable (albeit, usually, useful).

> Driving an EV of any kind is a strong political statement.

This surprises me (I believe you though!). I've read lots of articles and fun facts lately about how places like Texas go fastest at installing solar panels, because solar is now the cheapest source of energy and all. I'd blatantly assume that those new solar field owners would be charging their cars with their own electricity, also purely for money reasons and not climate/ideological ones.

Funny thing is that he is poisoning his own well by making leftwing people , who are much more likely to drive an EV, abhor him and Tesla.

It’s not only happening in the US but has also started to happen in other countries like Australia.

Yup - the hole turned me off so much I've switched my first EV buy to Hyundai ioniq 5 (N if my wife authorises it LOL) ... not saying they're any better but it's a branding thing ... I couldn't stand to be associated with anything to do with that hole.

It's in full swing here in Sweden too. Me and a close colleague bought new cars a couple of months apart. My left-leaning teammates who are usually pretty climate aware only offered congratulations to my colleagues new gasgussler, but had some criticisms for me who bought a Tesla.

I found it weird tho, like fair, they were pissed about Twitter, but surely the planet is the bigger issue?

Musk has pissed off the left to the point where the left is not thinking clearly about him and his companies anymore. Regardless of what you think about Musk, Tesla is actually pretty great.

Weirdly Hybrids have now become a climate denial fave.

In any thread about EVs there is a typical HN commenter desperate to tell you that they drive a hybrid, not an EV like those silly virtue signalers.

For those who remember the vicious attacks on the Prius it's a wild shift in attitude.

Weird how pointing out climate change inaccuracies destroyed scientific debate.

In any thread about climate change they are desperate to tell you that you’re a climate denier when you point out inaccurate information.

For those who remember the vicious attacks on science, we called that the dark ages.

In the late 1990s there were still medical scientists who questioned the causal link between HIV and AIDS. This was at a time when effective drugs were already approved and saving lives.

Those scientists believed they were asking reasonable questions and pointing out potential inaccuracies. But imagine you were an HIV positive patient in 1995 and you latched on to this scientific debate to conclude that probably you should just eat a lot of vitamins and things will work out fine, since the scientists can’t seemingly even agree on whether you’ll get AIDS…

This is not a theoretical example. AIDS denialism cost hundreds of thousands of lives during roughly 1995-2005. There was a Nobel prize winner (Kary Mullis) who supported the movement with his authority despite never having done any HIV research. The government of South Africa was also involved for their own political reasons.

It was a lot like today’s climate change denialism and needs to be remembered. The major difference is that the personal consequences of HIV denialism were felt within a few years on an individual level, so the matter was resolved within decades. With climate change, it’s going to take a century and today’s denialists won’t be around to feel the effects.

> With climate change, it’s going to take a century and today’s denialists won’t be around to feel the effects.

The thing that is so maddening is that we're already feeling the effects of climate change, but the denialists just claim those effects either aren't really happening, or are caused by something else (without bothering to define "something else").

> In the late 1990s there were still medical scientists who questioned the causal link between HIV and AIDS

This is how science works. Being right is not "science". Science is verb. If the questioners were right we would be calling them heroes.

I said as much in my comment, pointing out that these scientists with differing takes were not the bad guys: “These scientists believed they were asking reasonable questions and pointing out potential inaccuracies.”

The bad guys were the people who took this receding debate within the field as evidence of conspiracies and worse, and convinced thousands of people to treat their AIDS condition with quackery instead of effective drugs derived from the HIV-AIDS theory. The organized denialism killed people. That’s not science.

Well with climate change we have no scientists saying otherwise because we see they get attacked and lose funding by the quackery of the public and governments. As evident by the idiots on HN.

Funding is a red herring. Powerful interests would love to fund serious climate science that could assure the status quo is fine. If only they could find serious climate scientists willing to claim that.

Fifty years ago, there was no shortage of funding for medical scientists who tried to prove that tobacco didn't cause cancer. (You can guess where that funding came from.)

"Pointing out inaccurate information" in HN comments is not scientific debate, nor a science.

> By taking sides in a partisan culture war, he has made his core mission essentially non-partisan.

There is a significant amount of people choosing to not purchase a Tesla because they don’t want to be associated with Mr. Musk.

SpaceX is more insulated because there is essentially no alternative. If Yspace existed, I’m sure a significant amount of people would choose to champion that instead.

I think you’re vastly underselling how much Mr Musk his communications and his association with the new hyperbigoted misinformation-hub Xitter has turned people to dislike him, powerful and influential one’s among them.

> There is a significant amount of people choosing to not purchase a Tesla because they don’t want to be associated with Mr. Musk.

Yep, and I know people who have sold their Teslas because they don't want to be associated with Musk any longer.

If you want an honest answer to Prius vs Tesla, it's because Prius was seen as a slower and lamer version of existing cars for people who didn't care about cars. While Tesla's could get from 0-60 faster than hypercars of the time.

Tesla's offered an experience in terms of pure acceleration off the line that actually made them cool, even people who might never buy one wouldn't mind experiencing one off the line.

Yep. And he could have effortlessly achieved tolerability in most right wing circles that reflexively dislike "smug liberals" simply by not saying "smug liberal" stuff whilst encouraging right wingers to talk up what a great capitalist innovator he was, running red state targeted ad campaigns and making a pickup truck that people that normally drive gas-guzzlers would actually want to drive. His aspirations for colonies on Mars were already at least as appealing to much of the right as they ever were to the left.

Buying Twitter and wading into political debates isn't a depoliticization strategy, and if he'd wanted to pick a colour of his politics to optimize his business success (surprisingly unimportant when your product line is as far ahead of competition as SpaceX/Tesla have been) the correct choice would have been beige.

He believes the woke mind virus is a threat because he has a trans kid.

Yeah so much for supporting your children in their chosen life path :'(

Imagine having to completely break contact with your own father because he hates who you are so much :'(

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-61880709

> I think he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society

The issue is that many people who feel this way (seemingly Musk included) swing to the other extreme and embrace policy positions that only serve to further support and entrench systemic racism.

I'm not always comfortable with the methods and rhetoric of some social justice advocates, but I'm not going to present that as evidence that the movement they support is dangerous and we should strive for social injustice instead.

> he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society

If “woke” involves an understanding that media is mostly filtered through large corporations and crafts narratives used to serve the interests of the ruling class, I’m not surprised a billionaire owner of a media company would consider that a problem.

Rather than identifying actual problems people are facing, media wastes our time with irrelevant distractions. Don’t worry about the opioid epidemic. Don’t worry about the fact that kids increasingly can’t even read after graduating high school. Don’t worry about corporate consolidation and monopolies. You should be worrying about “wokeism”.

> I think he legitimately believes that “the woke mind virus” is an existential threat to our society

Musk blames 'wokeness' for his daughter rejecting him after he didn't accept who she was. His entire conflict with the left and the 'woke' is centered around this one issue. He can't accept that he was rejected because of what he has done, so he needs someone else to blame and fight with. He bought X as his propaganda tool, he doesn't care about the consequences of his actions on society—he only wants to win.

> Musk is primarily driven by a savior complex

I don't think that's correct, it seems more likely that he was always driven by an inferiority complex.

> His entire conflict with the left and the 'woke' is centered around this one issue

Extreme doubt.

But that is probably the reason why he came out of the closet about his views.

I think a lot of people have similar views to his, they just keep quiet. Because, well, look at what happens to you if you don’t.

> Musk stuck to what he's good at

Right. And that is?

Occasional well-thought-out, ambitious, and positive talking points combined with a whole lot of keeping his mouth shut seemed to work pretty well for him.

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